Una de las cosas más interesantes de Ancillary Justice, es que Ann Leckie utiliza cómo narrador a una Inteligencia Artificial. Como vuelta de tuerca, esta I.A. no sólo controla una nave espacial, sino que mediante sensores e implantes en todos los tripulantes tiene acceso a información de todas sus variables vitales, puede comunicarse con cada uno de ellos y además controlaba en primera persona a un centenar de cuerpos dentro y fuera de la nave. El resultado es la posibilidad de hacer un narrador en primera persona que al mismo tiempo es un narrador omnisciente.
Una I.A. que controla la nave y todo lo que pasa adentro es un planteo interesante, el problema que presenta en el segundo libro sobre la intimidad y privacidad en un ambiente de estas características es más interesante, la posibilidad de crear una nueva categoría de narrador es una genialidad. ¡Es el género en todo su potencial!
Centrales en la trilogía está la idea de los auxiliares (ancillaries) que le dan nombre a cada uno de los libros. Básicamente son los elementos rebeldes de mundos conquistados, que por medio de implantes se convierten en cuerpos para el uso de las I.A. de las naves. En el mundo de Leckie no hay robots, es mucho más sencillo subyugar cuerpos por medio de implantes y someterlos al control de una I.A.
Una I.A. que controla la nave y todo lo que pasa adentro es un planteo interesante, el problema que presenta en el segundo libro sobre la intimidad y privacidad en un ambiente de estas características es más interesante, la posibilidad de crear una nueva categoría de narrador es una genialidad. ¡Es el género en todo su potencial!
Centrales en la trilogía está la idea de los auxiliares (ancillaries) que le dan nombre a cada uno de los libros. Básicamente son los elementos rebeldes de mundos conquistados, que por medio de implantes se convierten en cuerpos para el uso de las I.A. de las naves. En el mundo de Leckie no hay robots, es mucho más sencillo subyugar cuerpos por medio de implantes y someterlos al control de una I.A.
“You hear stories about ancillaries, and it seems like the most awful thing, the most viscerally appalling thing the Radchaai have done. Garsedd -well, yes, Garsedd, but that was a thousand years ago. This-to invade and take, what, half the adult population? And turn them into walking corpses, slaved to your ships’ AIs. Turned against their own people…”
“Ancillaries are human bodies, but they’re also part of the ship. What the ancillaries feel, the ship feels. Because they’re the same. Well, different bodies are different. Things taste different or feel different, they don’t always want the same things, but altogether, on the average, yes, it’s a thing I attended to, for the bodies that needed it. I don’t like being uncomfortable, no one does. I did what I could to make my ancillaries comfortable.”
La historia principal se centra en Breq, la I.A. de una nave (Justice of Toren) que además de controlar a la nave en sí, controlaba un centenar de auxiliares. A mitad del primer libro queda en control de un solo auxiliar, perdiendo todo lo demás, y un poco ahí, otro poco en el resto de los libros, Leckie explora el sentido de perdida que esto implica.
“It was the third worst thing that has ever happened to me. I had lost all sense of Justice of Toren overhead, all sense of myself. I had shattered into twenty fragments that could barely communicate with each other.”
Y además del sentido de perdida, el camino de reconstrucción, de repensarse volver a forjar una nueva identidad.
“I spent six months trying to understand how to do anything, how to walk and breathe and sleep and eat as myself. As a myself that was only a fragment of what I had been, with no conceivable future beyond eternally wishing for what was gone.
In the nineteen years since then, I had learned eleven languages and 713 songs. I had found ways to conceal what I was- even, I was fairly sure, from the Lord of the Radch herself. I had worked as a cook, a janitor, a pilot. I had settled on a plan of action. I had joined religious order, and made a great deal of money. In all that time I only killed a dozen people.”
La idea de un ser (en este caso una I.A.) con una conciencia distribuida es excelente y abre el terreno para plantear preguntas complejas desde una nueva perspectiva, el más obvio es el de identidad y conflicto interno.
“The first I noticed even the bare possibility that I -Justice of Toren might not also be I -One Esk, was that moment that Justice of Toren edited One Esk’s memory of the slaughter in the temple of Ikkt. The moment I - “I” - was surprised by it.
It makes the history hard to convey. Because still, “I” was me, unitary, one thing, and yet I acted against myself, contrary to my interests and desires, sometimes secretly, deceiving myself as to what I knew and did. And it’s difficult for me even now to know who performed what actions, or knew which information. Because I was Justice of Toren. Even when I wasn’t. Even if I’m not anymore.”
Es una historia sobre cómo ve la humanidad una inteligencia artificial, creada y criada por humanos. Siempre presente la condescendencia de un ser que se cree excluido de esa humanidad pero que después de más de mil años de convivencia conoce todos sus mañas y defectos. Breq es la brújula moral de toda la historia, y por momentos se pone irritante, sólo ocasionalmente Leckie nos deja ver que Breq también tiene sentimientos… que las I.A. tenga sentimientos está cubierto con una excelente excusa:
“Without feelings insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It’s just easier to handle those with emotions.”
Otro punto de vista, es una historia sobre las emociones, contada por un ser poco emocional y con una capacidad para la racionalidad mucho más alta que la humana. Todas las emociones y sentimientos que Breq percibe, Leckie nos los cuenta, y esto a veces también es irritante, porque parece una telenovela contada por un robot.
Sobreimpuesto sobre estas ideas hay dos historias, la historia clásica del gran imperio que se desmorona, muy inspirada en estructuras sociales y culturales del imperio romano; la otra (que es bastante romana también) es la historia de los excluidos, el ciudadano (Radchaai) y el bárbaro, el privilegiado y el relegado, la I.A. y el ser humano.
“I know what Seven Issa, or at least those like them, do to people they find on the wrong side of a dividing line. Five years ago it was noncitizen. In the future, who knows? Perhaps not-citizen-enough?” She waved a hand, a gesture of surrender. “It won’t matter. Such boundaries are too easy to create.”
Tiene algunos momentos brutales que me hicieron recordar al universo de Warhammer 40K, es una lástima que no haya explotado un poco más ese lado visceral como contrapunto para los momentos más emocionales…
“...those people human troops shot… a hundred years ago they’d have been stored in suspension for future use as ancillary segments. Do you know how many we still have stockpiled? Justice of Toren’s holds will be full of ancillaries for the next million years. If not longer. Those people are effectively dead. So what’s the difference? And you don’t like my saying that, but here’s the truth: luxury always comes at someone else’s expense.”
“She knew, everyone in this line knew, that they would either be stored for future use as ancillaries -like the ancillaries of mine that stood before them even now, identities gone, bodies appendages to a Radchaai warship- or else they would be disposed of.”
Así cómo muchas voces proclamaban que la decadencia del Imperio Romano se debía a la corrupción de los valores que la hicieron grande, la decadencia del Imperio Radchaai se debe también a un acto de corrupción, pero en este caso del emperador Anaander Mianaai, que no es una persona, sino miles de cuerpos distribuidos en espacio Radchaai que comparten una mente.
“For three thousand years Anaander Minaai had ruled Radch space absolutely. She resided in each of the thirteen provincial palaces, and was present at every annexation. She was able to do this because she possessed thousands of bodies, all of them genetically identical, all of them linked to each other… It was she who made Radchaai law, and she who decided on any exceptions to the law. She was the ultimate commander of the military, the highest head priest of Amaat, the person to whom, ultimately, all Radchaai houses were clients.”
O como dice en el segundo libro, un poco más compacto:
“Thousands of bodies distributed over all of Radch space, twelve different headquarters, all in constant communication but timelagged. Radch space -and Anaander herself- had been steadily expanding for three thousand years, and by now it could take weeks for a thought to reach all the way across herself. It was always, from the beginning, going to fall apart at some point.”
Esta saga se incluye en el sub-genero Space-Opera, el gran paraguas donde cae toda obra de ciencia ficción con un imperio galáctico y guerras interestelares. Aunque en este caso hay muy pocas batallas y escenas de acción y las temáticas son tal vez más propias del Cyber-Punk que de una Space-Opera.
El conflicto épico está planteado, pero sólo vemos el desenlace del conflicto local, específicamente aislado del resto.
De las pocas cosas malas, ya mencioné que por momentos me fue resultando un poco tedioso como Breq narrador es una brújula moral infalible, y cómo pese a ser un narrador neutro necesita justificar las respuestas emocionales de todos los personajes. Si a esto le sumamos la omnipresencia de la I.A. de otra nave, se pueden dar situaciones telenovelescas, cómo una del tercer libro, donde las I.A. terminan actuando como mediadores emocionales en los amoríos de dos personajes… un poco demasiado para mi gusto, Leckie amaga bastante seguido con perderse un poco en relaciones “amorosas” pero consigue mantener el tema semi-controlado.
“I want to say,” said Seivarden, still standing, nervous and awkward, just inside the doorway. “I mean. A while ago I apologized for behaving very badly to you.” Took an embarrassed breath. “I didn’t understand what I’d done, I just wanted you to stop being angry at me. I just said what Ship told me I should say. I was angry at you, for being angry at me, but Ship talked me out of being any more stupid than I already had been. But I’ve been thinking about it.”
Ekalu, sitting at the table, went completely still, her face ancillary-blank.
Seivarden knew what that likely meant, but didn’t wait for Ekalu to say anything. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I still don’t understand exactly why what I said hurt you so much. But I don’t need to. It hurt you, and when you told me it hurt you I should have apologized and stopped saying whatever it was. And maybe spent some time trying to understand. Instead of insisting that you manage your feelings to suit me. And I want to say I’m sorry. And I actually mean it this time.”
Seivarden couldn’t see Ekalu’s reaction to this, since Ekalu still sat absolutely motionless. But ship could see. I could see.
Seivarden said, into Ekalu’s silence, “Also I want to say that I miss you. And what we had. But that’s my own stupid fault.”
Silence, for five seconds, though I thought that at any moment Ekalu might speak, or stand. Or weep. “Also,” said Seivarden, then, “I want to say that you’re an excellent officer. You were thrown into the position with no warning and hardly any official training, and I only wish I’d been as steady and as strong my first weeks as a lieutenant.”
“Well, you were only seventeen at the time,” said Ekalu.
“Lieutenant,” Ship admonished Ekalu, in her ear. “Take the compliment.”
Aloud, Ekalu said, “But thank you.”
“It’s an honor to serve with you,” Seivarden said. “Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.” And she bowed, and left.
Ekalu crossed her arms on the table, put her head down on them. “Oh, Ship,” she said, voice despairing. “Did you tell her to say any of that?”
“I helped a bit with the wording,” Ship replied. “But it wasn’t my idea. She means it.”
El conflicto épico está planteado, pero sólo vemos el desenlace del conflicto local, específicamente aislado del resto.
De las pocas cosas malas, ya mencioné que por momentos me fue resultando un poco tedioso como Breq narrador es una brújula moral infalible, y cómo pese a ser un narrador neutro necesita justificar las respuestas emocionales de todos los personajes. Si a esto le sumamos la omnipresencia de la I.A. de otra nave, se pueden dar situaciones telenovelescas, cómo una del tercer libro, donde las I.A. terminan actuando como mediadores emocionales en los amoríos de dos personajes… un poco demasiado para mi gusto, Leckie amaga bastante seguido con perderse un poco en relaciones “amorosas” pero consigue mantener el tema semi-controlado.
“I want to say,” said Seivarden, still standing, nervous and awkward, just inside the doorway. “I mean. A while ago I apologized for behaving very badly to you.” Took an embarrassed breath. “I didn’t understand what I’d done, I just wanted you to stop being angry at me. I just said what Ship told me I should say. I was angry at you, for being angry at me, but Ship talked me out of being any more stupid than I already had been. But I’ve been thinking about it.”
Ekalu, sitting at the table, went completely still, her face ancillary-blank.
Seivarden knew what that likely meant, but didn’t wait for Ekalu to say anything. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I still don’t understand exactly why what I said hurt you so much. But I don’t need to. It hurt you, and when you told me it hurt you I should have apologized and stopped saying whatever it was. And maybe spent some time trying to understand. Instead of insisting that you manage your feelings to suit me. And I want to say I’m sorry. And I actually mean it this time.”
Seivarden couldn’t see Ekalu’s reaction to this, since Ekalu still sat absolutely motionless. But ship could see. I could see.
Seivarden said, into Ekalu’s silence, “Also I want to say that I miss you. And what we had. But that’s my own stupid fault.”
Silence, for five seconds, though I thought that at any moment Ekalu might speak, or stand. Or weep. “Also,” said Seivarden, then, “I want to say that you’re an excellent officer. You were thrown into the position with no warning and hardly any official training, and I only wish I’d been as steady and as strong my first weeks as a lieutenant.”
“Well, you were only seventeen at the time,” said Ekalu.
“Lieutenant,” Ship admonished Ekalu, in her ear. “Take the compliment.”
Aloud, Ekalu said, “But thank you.”
“It’s an honor to serve with you,” Seivarden said. “Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.” And she bowed, and left.
Ekalu crossed her arms on the table, put her head down on them. “Oh, Ship,” she said, voice despairing. “Did you tell her to say any of that?”
“I helped a bit with the wording,” Ship replied. “But it wasn’t my idea. She means it.”
PD: Por ahí tendría que haber mencionado que el lenguaje del imperio Radch no tiene distinción de género, por lo cual en el texto el pronombre utilizado para todos los personajes es “She”, indistintamente para los masculinos y los femeninos. Consigue medianamente su objetivo de hacer irrelevante el género de cada personaje, y por ende cuestionables nuestros prejuicios basados en el género… aunque si leen el extracto de arriba pueden ver que no consigue romper con los estereotipos de relaciones.
